After Steven Sidbury, a 23-year-old prisoner from Brooklyn charged with murder and arson, pulled out a small knife hidden in his rectum and allegedly slashed another inmate in the head at the Albany County jail on Aug. 21, the legend of Rikers Island inmates reached a new crescendo.

In the aftermath of the vicious attack — in which Sidbury was charged with multiple counts of assault and criminal possession of a weapon — talk among correction officers boosted the fearsome reputation of Rikers Island inmates shipped up from New York City to the Albany County jail as $100-a-night boarders.

"We live upstate, we hear terrible things about Rikers and some people think they're the pit bulls of prisoners. They are stigmatized a lot," said Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple. "Just because they're from Rikers doesn't make them horrible or the worst of the worst. They're like any other inmate, and we treat them all the same. They have not made our facility any more or less dangerous than it was."

The jail can use the extra money: There are more than 400 empty beds, and the number of outside prisoners — and the revenue they bring in — is dropping significantly.

Despite a swirl of rumors that the six current Rikers Island boarders had created a large spike in violence at the jail, Apple said that was not the case and there have not been any unusual problems reported about the Rikers boarders aside from Sidbury's attack two weeks ago.

"People are a little bit intimidated about those guys and think they're dangerous, so the pit bull analogy is a good one," said John Smith, a correction officer for 29 years who intends to retire next year.

Smith said he had not seen or heard of any other Rikers-related problems other than Sidbury, who also allegedly punched the other inmate repeatedly in the head because he resisted Sidbury's efforts to form a jail gang, according to jail officials. Sidbury was moved out of the jail.

"We work in a dangerous facility and things happen on a regular basis, but there's been nothing out of the ordinary that I know of from the Rikers Island boarders" besides the Sidbury attack, said Dennis Galkiewicz, president of Local 775 of Council 82, the union that represents 280 correction officers at the Albany County jail.

Apple said he accepted the Rikers Island inmates this summer as a courtesy after a request from jail officials in New York City.

"They had problems with gang leaders and gang activity at Rikers, so they split them up and moved them around the state to several counties and they asked us to take some and we did," Apple said. There is an unofficial reciprocal agreement among sheriffs across New York, and inmates are routinely transferred between counties when requested.

Apple said Albany County jail has accepted Rikers Island boarders as a matter of course for many years without major issues.

But correction officers take seriously the culture clash between downstate and upstate prisoners.

"The Rikers guys are out of their element and in a completely different setting, and when you put those different groups of Rikers and Albany together we always have to be careful," Smith said. "The officers are professional, and we're trained to deal with prisoners from Rikers and anywhere else. I'd say we are on heightened alert when we get boarders."

Apple said some of the Rikers Island boarders initially tested the rules at the jail. "They had more freedom at Rikers Island, but they had to follow our rules up here," Apple said. "Everyone abides by the policies of our facility."

In Rikers Island, an inmate could be placed in a special housing unit for disciplinary reasons for a maximum number of days each year. There is no maximum limit at the Albany County jail, and some of the Rikers Island boarders were placed in more restrictive special housing units here while others are in the general population based on their behavior, Apple said.

"Some of them tried to act up a little bit to get us to send them back to Rikers because that's their home turf," Smith said. The tactic did not work.

Boarding inmates from other counties is big business for Albany County, although that outside revenue has plummeted this year. There are currently about 70 boarders, compared with about 170 at this time last year. The largest current group of boarders are from Jefferson County, with about 30, and Schoharie County, with about 25. There are currently about 20 federal inmate boarders, down from 60 to 70 on average last year.

The rates vary. Schoharie, Jefferson and other rural counties typically pay $85 a night per prisoner, while New York City pays $100 and the rate for federal prisoners is $120.

In 2014, Albany County took in a record $8 million in boarder fees on an annual budget at the jail of about $39 million. The revenue went into the county's general fund. Nearly $2 million of that outside revenue last year came from roughly 150 nightly Dutchess County boarders, but that county decided to build additional cells and the Dutchess County revenue dried up.

Projections for 2015 are for boarder revenue to be less than $4 million, down 50 percent from last year, Apple said.

In fact, the vacancy rate at the Albany County jail has risen sharply this year, in part because the flow of boarders has slowed considerably for reasons that are not entirely clear — part of a broad unexplained trend of fewer prisoners in county jails around the state.

"I'd like to say our diversionary tactics sending drug addicts into treatment is working, but it's too early to say that and we need more analytical data," Apple said.

The inmate population at the Albany County jail was 610 on Wednesday. The jail's maximum capacity is 1,040 inmates.

The current vacancy rate is about 40 percent, compared to an average vacancy rate of about 20 percent last year.

With the huge drop in boarder revenue, Apple's other budgetary tool is to leave correction officer openings unfilled to reduce the cost to county taxpayers. Currently, there are about 38 unfilled correction officer openings. It costs about $90,000 annually to hire a new correction officer, with about half that amount going to benefits.

"We are running the jail safely at the current vacancy rate with those C.O. openings, and that should save the county up to $2 million this year," Apple said. "If we didn't take in the boarders, we might have to lay off correction officers to manage our budget."

Apple has asked the state Commission of Correction, which sets required staffing levels in county jails, to review the Albany County jail and reassess how many correction officers are needed.

"A jail was never meant to make money, and public safety is costly," Apple said. "We were able to reduce the tax burden to county taxpayers by $8 million last year. Unfortunately, that won't be the case this year."